The Badlander
by Mikel Midnight
Summary: In a Great Britain devastated by nuclear war, Meggan decided to become the new Captain Britain after her husband the original Captain Britain, Brian Braddock, died.


It used to be called London. That was before the war.

Nothing good gets born here. Nothing good grows here.

Hog Benhenry's mother was a freak weather condition caused by a nuclear hurricane. He didn't have a father.

* * *

She swept down from the skies like a bird of prey. She had been on the lookout for the three men Bromox, Slabjack, and Mr. Fist since they'd raided the Bog Onion settlement. Life near the badlands which comprised most of Great Britain was hardscrabble enough without a criminal element being introduced. She had no patience for it.

Bromox cursed as she descended before them. "Drokk, itsa flyin hole."

"It's Captain Britain," Meggan said, curling her lip. She tucked a stray lock of blonde hair into her half-helm. "I would ... rather you men would just turn yourself in and avoid more violence." Her voice was taught. She was no longer the child-woman that had so enamoured her husband the original Captain Britain, Brian Braddock, before he died in the nuclear war which had devastated Great Britain, forcing her to take on his name and role.

"Naw, I dunthinkzo hole." Mr. Fist's mechanical fist crackled with energy. Meggan was constantly amazed that even after the war which had left so much of the planet operating barely at subsistence level, classes of people still went underground to seek out cybernetic enhancements. Some underlying need to become 'super villains.' She wondered, not for the first time, whether her very existence provoked them, as had been speculated by some pre-war media figures. Maybe she had done her people a disservice by not joining the Excalibur which had visited her from crosstime, which had invited her to accompany them.

The other two ranged out, in an attempt to surround her. Slabjack's flesh had been coarsened until it resembled the texture and hardness of concrete; his legs were artificial, brutally mechanical and appeared to be extendable. Bromox's glands had evidently been altered, as a tube of flesh rose up leading from the back of his neck down the sides of his arms, the ends parting open to drip a substance which Meggan's natural senses recognised as chemical and poisonous.

She knew Bromox's poisons couldn't kill her, but it would take her body time to accommodate them, and during that time she'd be vulnerable to a direct physical attack. She knew she lacked Brian's raw invulnerability in this uniform, although it did augment her own strength and resistance to some degree, and wasn't sure what effect a blow from Mr. Fist would have.

"Whatzitgonnabe hole," Bromox sneered at her. "Playball?" He flicked a hand in her direction, fluid splaying out in her direction. She allowed an expression of alarm to show on her face, and began to rise into the air, out of his reach.

Slabjack said, "Aw cmon hole, not gonna play?" He didn't disappoint her in the slightest as he extended his legs hydraulically and rose into the air. He proved to be quicker than she anticipated, however, and his rock-hard fists pummeled her mercilessly.

She managed to invoke her own powers of flight enough to slow her descent before she struck ground. "Timeta play," Mr. Fist said as he approached. "Of course," she said. "My game." She kicked out, striking Slabjack's extended leg with shattering force. He toppled over, and she used the remains of the leg as a club, striking down Bromox and Mr. Fist quickly.

She sighed over the bodies. The trio were amateurish enough that even with their enhancements they were no real challenge, but as much time as she'd spent as Captain Britain, she never felt solace from her pains by abandoning herself to violence. It only provided the briefest of distractions, and then she was left with loneliness.

She began to gather up the immense mutated dogs which the trio had been using as pack animals, to the purpose of guiding them back to the village from which they'd been stolen, when she was temporarily blinded by a flash of light. The roar of sound came later. She rose up into the air, to witness what appeared to be a series of explosions in the heart of the Badlands. Her enhanced perceptions recognised the malefic radiation which accompanied the blasts. Who would dare, she thought, and began to direct her flight towards the disruption.

At the heart of the storm was an enormous man with a barrel-shaped body and hands that looked as if they could crush a skull with ease. He had an animalistic face with a broad nose and a mouth curved down in a brutal grimace with two small pointed tusks visible from his lower jaw. He was almost bald save for a few tufts of black hair, but his long beard was full and his small piglike eyes were dwarfed beneath shaggy brows. He was wearing what appeared to be a modified eighteenth century military uniform in complementary hues of green. Around his waist was a leather belt with a lightningbolt-shaped buckle, and from the side of the belt hung a large scabbard. He held a piece of metal which appeared to have been torn from the remains of a great building, and he appeared to be trying to hammer it into the shape of a sword, using only his hands atop a stone outcropping. Mist seemed to rise from his body as he moved.

Heart pounding in her chest from the power the man radiated, she alighted before him. His entire being projected so much radiation that her body was forced to mutate to accommodate it enough to preserve her life. Had she not already undergone enough mutation to survive the nuclear war, she probably would be dead by now.

"Please," she said, attempting to be heard over the clangor of fists on metal, "can we talk?"

He paused, checking the balance on the blade before turning towards her. "What ya doin', meh duck?"

"You're ... " the man's casual manner bemused her. "This whole area has already been greatly damaged by radioactivity, and you're generating enormous amounts more."

He shrugged, her words apparently nonsensical to him. "Can't be helped, mate, I need meh sword. I have travelin' ta do, a world ta grind under meh feet." He raised his fists and began again his hammering, each blow a small explosion.

She winced, and began to fortify herself, drawing earth energy from deep inside the planet's core, increasing in size as she did so until her mass approached the man's. She inserted one hand under his wrist, blocking his swing. "We need to talk, first."

He smirked at her, "I thought ya was one of those stupid townies. I'd gladly have ya travelin' wif me, but I do mean ta take ta the road." He raised his sword and moved to bring it down towards her head.

She swept up into the air, evasively. His smirk turned to a scowl, and she sensed a nuclear hurricane forming beneath his feet, with the sound and fury of an exploding bomb. It swept him up into the air in radioactively hot pursuit.

Even in her present form, she found his close proximity almost unbearable. She tried to draw on more ambient energy, but the planet was too weak and unrecovered from the escalated superhuman war, which had rendered its major cities into ruins, to support her against such an opponent.

Higher into the atmosphere they rose as she struggled against the nuclear demigod. His strength seemed inexhaustible, and she felt herself about to fail. "Help me Roma," she whispered a plea to the woman whose allegiance she had never sworn.

She felt a cool hand on her brow, and knew what she had to do.

As she struggled with her opponent hand to hand, matching his aggressive energy with her own, she allowed a part of herself to open up, to become accepting and compassionate. She took in the radioactivity within herself and channeled it into the infinite realm of Avalon, replacing it with the Avalon's own mystic life force.

After a time, her opponent recognised her strategy, and growled furiously. Preoccupied as she was, Meggan failed to mark his increased ferocity, and was caught by surprise as his sword was thrust inside her torso. She pressed her lips to his, weeping, and with her dying breath, filled his body with her own energy until in rage he exploded.

She was dead, the impact of his rage channeled through his sword dissipating her physical form. She felt calm, and as she rose higher she could see the settlements and surviving villages she had fought so long to protect. She could see the trees and plants, withered and distorted by exposure to radiation, but still striving to survive and bear fruit. She felt their rough bark, their tender leaves, their sweet fruits. Her senses expanded until they encompassed the planet, and found herself satisfied with her present state. She spread herself thinner and thinner, until her body encompassed all that her senses brought to her. And when she was as thin as a gas, she snapped. Her tactile existence ended, and the life force including that which had been transmuted from Hog Benhenry, yes she knew now his name, as well as that brought over from Avalon, fell like restorative shade over the surface of the planet. And in her final act of defense for the earth which she had loved so much, she birthed it once more into life.

* * *

Meggan and Captain Britain trademark and copyright Marvel Comics, Inc.

Hog Benhenry, Bromox, Slabjack, and Mr. Fist trademark and copyright Alan Moore.

With apologies to Peter Carey's novel _Bliss_.


End file.
